Lawmakers accept game tickets from special interest groups

SACRAMENTO (AP) -- More than half of the state's 120 legislators
accepted tickets to sporting events last year from groups with
interests before the state, a newspaper reported Sunday.

Despite reforms a decade ago aimed at keeping gift-giving in
check, a Los Angeles Times review of public records show that the
practice is widespread.

Although it is difficult to ascertain whether those gifts
influenced decisions, it is clear that entertaining lawmakers with
coveted sports tickets, travel and other gifts helps special
interests forge relationships with key decision makers.

"It's an opportunity to talk with lawmakers in a more relaxed
environment," said Ron Low, spokesman for Pacific Gas &
Electric, which entertained Assemblyman Roderick Wright and several
staff members at various sporting events last year.

Last year, records show, Wright accepted tickets to NBA games
from a half dozen companies including Southern California Edison
and PG&E, the two big utilities whose financial troubles helped
trigger the state energy crisis. At one NBA playoff game between
the Lakers and Sacramento Kings, he received $248.78 in free luxury
box tickets, food and drink from Arco.

Lobbyists are barred in California from giving lawmakers gifts
worth more than $10 a month. But the interests they work for are
not. Those businesses or groups can legally give gifts of as much
as $320, recently increased from $300. And when politicians get
tickets to a sporting event or rock concert from a corporation,
company lobbyists often end up sitting in the luxury box beside
them.

Wright, also chairman of the Assembly Utilities and Commerce
Committee, said he takes the tickets for the same reason companies
offer them: to strengthen his ties with lobbyists.

"The business we are in is about relationships," Wright said.
"Many people I do things with, I do it because I want to get to
know these people outside of a sterile committee room. … And yes,
that is a two-way street."

In the first six months of 2000, Arco gave 135 Kings tickets to
legislators, aides and other bureaucrats. It also handed out
tickets to an ice skating event, a motocross race, a Tina Turner
concert, and a Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young rock show, among
other attractions.

Arco and BP Amoco, which took over Arco in 2000, lobbied
legislators on numerous issues last year, which included bills to
rein in gasoline prices, state air quality regulations, and next
year's phaseout of the gasoline additive MTBE, which has been
linked to cancer in laboratory animals.

Many legislators reimburse their benefactors for some or all of
the costs. Unless lawmakers refund gifts within 30 days, they and
the companies that gave the gifts are required to disclose
them.

The Fair Political Practices Commission, created to enforce
campaign finance and ethics laws, is supposed to take action
against those who violate gift limits.

But the cash-strapped commission does not review all disclosure
reports. It typically looks into potential violations only after
someone, usually a political opponent, registers a complaint.

Even with $320 gift limit, in practice, the amount is easily
exceeded.

For example, two special interest groups can split the costs of
entertaining a lawmaker.

Another loophole allowed state Sen. Jack O'Connell, D-San Luis
Obispo, his wife and daughter, to attend the first game of the
Lakers' second-round playoff series last May, courtesy of Pacific
Bell.

The price of admission would have exceeded the then-$300 limit
-- if he had been the recipient of all three tickets.

Another quirk is that lawmakers are charged face value for any
tickets they receive, although getting a ticket for that amount to
many top events is all but impossible.